"This work is unlike any other, in its range of rich, conjuring imagery and its dexterity, its smart voice. Carroll-Hackett doesn’t spare us—but doesn’t save us—she draws a blueprint of power and class with her unflinching pivot: matter-of-fact and tender." —Jan Beatty

Writing Prompts

DailyPrompts 2015

3//4/2015

“Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness.” Write about an unexpected gift.

3/5/2015

Snowbound? “I believe in this stalled magnificence…” Write about being trapped somewhere because of weather.

3/6/2015

“This inwardness, this ice.” Create art with ice as the central image or metaphor.

3/7/2015

Create art where a child understands its mother in a new way.

3/8/2015

Time Change? Missing hour? Create art about time lost.

3/9/2015

Mondays often feel the same. Create art beginning with “But today things would be different…”

3/10/2015

“There is a voice inside the body.” Create art about a voice from the past.

3/11/2015

“Emptiness only emptiness can see–” Create art inspired by a something discovered to be empty.

3/12/2015

“If I were a nomad would I measure time by the length of a footstep?” Create art inspired by some kind of move.

3/13/2015

“Consider the hands that write this letter.” Create art about an unopened letter.

3/14/2015

“Whenever it rains you will think of her”~Neil Gaiman Create art where rain is memory.

3/15/2015

“The world begins at a kitchen table.”~Joy Harjo Make art inspired by talk at a kitchen table.

3/16/2015

“With my hands in the dirt I am on good terms with everything.” Make art about growing something.

3/17/2015

“I walk through the long schoolroom questioning” Make art from a childhood memory.

3/18/2015

“When my body had forgotten its purpose” Make art about forgiving the body.

3/19/2015

“I tell them those who build And master are the ones invariably Merry”~Liam Rector Make art about rebuilding.

3/20/2015

“Nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged”~Nelson Mandela Make art about something or someone returning.

3/21/2015

“Bury your heart in some deep green hollow”~Charlotte Mew Make art where the color Green is a metaphor.

“There, we measure shadows, search among ghostly errors of measurement”~Edwin Powell Hubble Make art about measuring.

3/28/2015

“We have discarded dreams,preferring the heavy industry of each other”~Mark Strand Make art about a discarded dream.

3/29/2015

“The Cherokee weaver dreams, two under, one over, color and shape in distant memory”~M. Carroll-Hackett Make art with weaving as a metaphor.

3/30/2015

“I eat the past, what we have been, and so eat god”~R.P. Blackmur Make art about hunger and memory.

3/31/2015

“The imperfect dancing in the beautiful dance.The dance most of all.”~Jack Gilbert Create art about dancing.

4/1/2015

“In April I will give my heart to anyone at all”~Frances Morrison Make art about a time you gave your heart away

4/2/2015

“The wild eye, all day the dream will linger”~Karina Borowicz Make art about a lingering image from a dream

4/3/2015

“The maps we make are always self-portraits” Make art about a map, or mapping.

4/4/2015

“What did I dream? I dreamt I was the moon”~Alice Oswald Make art about a blood moon.

4/5/2015

*8 Rules for Ghosts:They’ll expect you at night, or at least at twilight. They don’t understand that you remember, and long for the heat of the sun, especially as it warms a field of bluebells.”~Mary Carroll-Hackett Make art about an apparition

4/6/2015

“There’s nobody who’s more of a nuisance than a psychic child.”~Margaret Mead, American cultural anthropologist Make art about a child who’s different.

4/7/2015

“There is such grace in this reconciliation”~Susan Ludvigson Make art about coming back together

4/8/2015

“This is the cathedral sea. In the upper air we are hungry.”~Michael Schmidt Make art about hunger.

4/9/2015

“In fog a tree steps back.”~William Stafford Make art about fog as fear.

4/10/2015

“Not to burn half the house down and build half the house up”~Robin Ekiss Make art about creation & destruction.

4/11/2015

“Loss is less at first than after, no hour can contain it all”~Mabel Simpson Make art about surviving loss.

4/12/2015

“Let’s not mourn what is not ours”~from a pome I wrote this morning 🙂 Make art about something that doesn’t belong to you.

“This is what poems are…mercy for the greedy”~Anne Sexton Make art exploring greed.

4/26/2015

“We’d like to talk with you about fear they said”~Jody Gladding Make art about someone imprisoned by his or her own fear.

4/27/2015

“The surface glittered out of heart of light” ~T.S. Eliot Make art about surfaces, or surfacing.

4/28/2015

“All they have is the pure impulse to eat”~Carol Muske-Dukes Make art about food, about preparing food, about sharing food.

4/29/2015

“I learned too late how to live”~Christian Wiman Make art about missed opportunity.

4/302015

“Risk that there might be a last chance”~Robert Duncan Make art about taking that profound risk.

5/1/2015

“The long brown path before me leading wherever I choose.”~Walt Whitman Make art about a journey of choice.

5/4/2015

“Say you love the highway,the blacktop, and the bullet-riddled sign that reads Primitive Road”~Lucas Howell Make art about the road.

5/5/2015

“If we can share our story with someone who responds with empathy and understanding, shame can’t survive.”~Brené Brown Make art about shame, about feeling it, about sharing it, about overcoming it, about releasing it.

5/6/2015

“Even sleep is a prayer”~Ilya Kaminsky Make art about ordinary things as prayer.

5/7/2015

“I hear the warm weather coming”~Ava Schicke Make art with a change of season as the central metaphor.

5/8/2015

“We made this journey not in desire But thirst.”~Robert Fitzgerald Make art about thirst.

5/9/2015

“For us there is only the trying”~T.S. Eliot Make art about trying something new.

5/10/2015

Yep. It’s that day.Make art redefining what it means to ‘mother.’ Let us see ‘mothering’ in some unexpected way.

5/11/2015

“The thunderstorm came like a pot boiling over”~Katie Peterson Make art about thunder, or the sounds of a storm.

5/12/2015

“At six o’clock we were waiting for coffee, waiting for coffee and the charitable crumb”~Elizabeth Bishop Make art about those morning rituals.

5/13/2015

“To sleep: perchance to dream”~Shakespeare Make art about the mysteries of sleep.

5/14/2015

“I tell them those who build And master are the ones invariably Merry”~Liam Rector Make art about building, the act of building, the process of building, about being a builder.

5/15/2015

“Be wild; that is how to clear the river.”~Clarissa Pinkola Estés Make art celebrating wildness.

“From people who fixed things themselves, never calling the man, never summoning the sixty-bucks-an-hour-ready-in-a-week guy, I learned to believe in repair”~Mary Carroll-Hackett Make art about repair, the process of repairing.

5/18/2015

DailyPrompt “You can’t teach a man anything.You can only help him find it within himself.”~Galileo Galilei Make art about teaching.

5/19/2015

“I often think of a poem as a door that opens”~Minnie Bruce Pratt Make art about doors.

5/20/2015

“Luck, like hope, is hollow-boned”~Eric Pankey Make art about making your own luck.

5/21/2015

“a boot-beat that comes and goes, a line of prayer”~Joanna Klink Make art about everyday acts as prayer.

5/22/2015

“I like the generosity of numbers. The way, for example, they are willing to count anything or anyone:”~Mary Cornish Make art about numbers, or counting.

5/24/2015

Better Late Than Never Daily Prompt 🙂 Thinkin on how much Choice plays a role in where we dwell 🙂 “I dwell in possibility”~Emily Dickinson Make art about possibility.

5/25/2015

“So many locks, not enough keys.”~Sarah Dessen Make art about locks, being locked in, locked out.

5/26/2015

“we are what light gazes on”~Dan Beachy-Quick Make art about something revealed by light.

5/27/2015

“When a stargirl cries, she sheds not tears but light”~Jerry Spinelli Make art about tears as a gift.

5/28/2015

“For me, trees have always been the most penetrating preachers”~Hermann Hesse Make art about what we can learn from trees.

5/29/2015

“There is/no reasoning with need”~Claudia Rankine Make art about need.

5/30/2015

“One could grow as hungry for light as for food.”~Stephen King Make art about feeding, or hunger.

5/31/2015

“Touch has memory”~John Keats Make art about touch.

6/1/2015

“The gift was not in the roses but in the abundance of the roses”~John Ciardi Make art about abundance.

Home to the garden ❤ “the ground like a made bed with its mulch of leaves, orderly, full of possibilities, acts of love not yet performed”~Minnie Bruce Pratt Make art about a garden, about life as a garden, about what can be learned from a garden.

7/14/2015

“A stone may be broken, but keeps its secrets well–does not mind the relic of feet”~Syd S. Salt Make art about stones.

“Girl grown woman fire mother of fire/ I go to the stone street turning to fire”~Muriel Rukeyser Make art about fire, about burning.

7/17/2015

❤ Make art about those who face adversity without bitterness, who meet it with quiet grace.

7/18/2015

LateNightDailyPrompt “Late, late, so late! but we can enter still”~Tennyson Make art about those late dark hours.

7/19/2015

Dreamt a visit with my mama and beloved grandmothers. Make art about when the dead come to visit.

7/20/2015

“How easily happiness begins by dicing onions”~William Matthews Make art about preparing food, about the preciousness of food.

7/21/2015

“Love’s balustrade, love’s balcony/a few iron words that can be seen anywhere”~Alexandria Peary Make art about the architecture of Love.

7/22/2015

“I had the idea of sitting still while others rushed by.”~Deborah Landau Make art about stillness.

7/23/2015

“Cooking is like love. It should be entered into with abandon or not at all.”- Harriet van Horne Make art about cooking.

7/24/2015

“Are there any habitable exoplanets that can hear us?”~Wired Make art about an extraterrestrial encounter.

7/25/2015

“Imagine you wake up with a second chance.”~Rita Dove Make art about second chances.

7/26/2015

“In every deliberation, we must consider the impact on the seventh generation…”~The Constitution of the Iroquois Nation

“Our greatest responsibility is to be good ancestors.”~Jonas Salk

Make art about generational responsibility.

7/27/2015

I forgot to post a prompt. So make art about forgetting.

7/28/2015

“Come down off the cross. We can use the wood.”~Tom Waits Make art exploring self-centeredness. Or lessons in selflessness. Or one of those moments we’re all reminded that ‘everything’s not about you.’

7/29/2015

“My love is as a fever, longing still”~Shakespeare Make art about longing.

7/30/2015

“Makes me end, where I begun”~John Donne Make art about coming full circle.

7/31/2015

“No one you will ever know works that land now.It is as green as Eden. Life rises in the roots, in the leaves.”~John Piller Make art about roots, real or metaphorical.

“The dead have told these stories To the living”~Frank Stanford Make art about living with the dead.

8/3/2015

“For a seed to achieve its greatest expression, it must come completely undone.”~Cynthia Occelli Make art about coming undone.

8/4/2015

Make art about family

8/5/2015

“The noise of passing feet on the prairie–Is it men or gods who come out of the silence?”~Alice Corbin Make art about listening.

8/6/2015

“I don’t just wish you rain, Beloved – I wish you the beauty of storms”~John Geddes Make art about experiencing a storm, real or metaphorical, as cleansing.

8/7/2015

“I never saw a wild thing sorry for itself. A small bird will drop frozen dead from a bough without ever having felt sorry for itself.”~D.H.Lawrence Make art about rising above self-pity.

8/8/2015

I keep thinkin this mornin about day to day wonder ❤ Make art about the mythology of ordinary life.

8/9/2015

“And you learn and learn, With every good-bye you learn”~Jorge Luis Borges Make art about saying goodbye.

8/10/2015

“We are stardust. We are golden”~Joni Mitchell Make art about cosmic origins. Or the origin of the cosmos.

8/11/2015

My dog hit a shelf and broke 30 jars of food last night. Make art about letting go of what’s broken.

8/11/2015 Bonus Prompt ❤

My baby brother Bill was my best friend in this life. He would have been 46 today. I miss him every moment.

Make art about best friends.

8/12/2015

“Indulge your passion for science, but let your science be human.”~David Hume Make art about science.

8/13/2015

Late Day Daily Prompt “Those who cannot renounce attachment to the results of their work are far from the path.”- Bhagavad Gita 6:1-2 Make art about detachment, about working toward detachment, about the peace in detachment.

8/14/2015

“She was disappearing a little more each day…One day she would surely vanish altogether, and there was no way to stop her.”~Alice Hoffman Make art about disappearing, or wanting to disappear, or disappearances.

8/15/2015

Up in the dark before dawn Make art about those early hours before the light returns.

8/16/2015

“Bright he might survive With his pen-knife only.”~Liam Rector Make art about survival.

8/17/2015

“Oh my ways are strange ways and new ways and old ways. And deep ways and steep ways, and high ways, and low.”~Henry Lawson

I’m teaching some young people to can food. Make art inspired by old wisdom.

8/18/2015

“It’s the sort of thing a god might do, a god in the shape of a river, in the shape of a bird, in the shape of a bone tucked inside a scar.”~G.C. Waldrep Make art about daily glimpses of the divine. Or about things a god might do.

8/19/2015

“The brain, like the earth, lies in layers”~Patricia Kirkpatrick Make art about layers, literal or metaphorical, or use structural imagery and build a piece of art–poem, painting, essay, story–itself in layers.

8/20/2015

“Perhaps a sacred moment is a photograph you look at over and over again”~Lee Herrick Make art about a sacred moment.

8/21/2015

Late Day Daily Prompt “The hour of tears is when night and day fold into one, and every flower seals”~Julia Carlie Make art inspired by twilight.

8/22/2015

“It would be good to hear their songs, reapers of the sweet-stalked cane, cutters of the corn”~Jean Toomer Make art about the harvest, about harvesting.

8/23/2015

Last night I dreamt of so so many shining spoons, too many spoons to choose from 🙂 Someone I love stood at my side and laughed indulgently at my excitement about all of those spoons LOL Make art about spoons. 🙂

8/24/2015

Woke up feeling like life’s full of promise 🙂 So many dreams last night, but all that remains are shining fragments 🙂 Make art about fragments.

8/25/2015

Teaching keeps me believing in tomorrow. Make art about possibility.

8/26/2015

“What heat it takes for the body to blossom into speech.”~Dorianne Laux Make art about finding your voice.

8/27/2015

“I am large, I contain multitudes.” – Walt Whitman Make art about the many selves.

8/28/2015

“I see you in your backyard’s lavender, post-lunch doze, dreaming someone.”~W.S. Di Piero Make art inspired by lavender, the color or the scent or the flower 🙂 or the feeling 🙂

Catch-Up 😀

8/29/2015

All my kids coming home for a visit 🙂 Make art about visitors.

8/30/2015

You are my children. You are my jewels. We old ones invest our future in you.” ~Diane Samuels Make art about children, young or adult, or about parenting.

8/31/2015

I’m fixin to go on a sewin binge 🙂 The first known sewing needle came from southwestern France and dates to about 25,000 years ago. When I sew, I feel an endless procession of women surround me, as I, in my small way, add to the story. Make art about sewing, or needlework, or stitching something together.

9/1/2015

Dreamt someone I love gave me a ring full of keys and I gleefully skipped around unlocking and throwing open doors. 🙂 Make art about keys, about finding the key.

9/2/2015

Thinkin on how the heart knows no boundaries 🙂 Make art about love’s geography.

Lots of thinkin this week about salvage. “The wreck is a fact…The salvage trucks back in and the salvage men begin to sort and stack, whistling as they work.”~Kay Ryan Make art about salvage, or salvaging something.

Someone I love is battling cancer. Make art about illnesss or disease.

9/7/2015

Dreamt someone I love brought me yards of unbleached cotton and lace. Make art with flowing white fabric, or lace, or lacing as the central metaphor.

9/8/2015

Dreamt I found you by following the sound of your voice. Make art about echolocation, or the sound of a voice in the dark.

9/9/2015

“And then the sun came slicing sideways, clear water reflecting it, giving it slant. A gloss of rain so quick and light that day hardly made a sound.”~Stephen Connolly Make art about sun and silence.

9/10/2015

“The taste of every living thing is in the raindrop”~Afaa Michael Weaver Make art about the taste of weather.

9/11/2015

“I stood in the brink of heaven. And I swear that Great Territory did quake when I fell, free.”~Gregory Corso Make art about your heaven, about falling from heaven.

9/12/2015

Cutting out a new skirt this morning. Love to see it emerge from the fabric, the art of cutting away. Make art about this emergence from cutting away;

or reenvision one of these old adages, making us see it in some new way:

cut out, cut off, cut bait, cut the cord, cut loose, cut to the chase, a cut above, cut and dried, cut a rug, cut and paste, unkindest cut, cut to the bone, cut and run, cut from the same cloth, make the cut, cuts both ways.

9/13/2015

“I heard an Angel singing/ When the day was springing/ Mercy Pity Peace…”~William Blake Make art about everyday angels.

9/14/2015

“Like primitives we buried the cat with his bowl”~Jane Kenyon Make art about burial rituals, about our need for rites.

9/15/2015

🙂 September chill in the air this morning. Make art about shifting temperatures, literal or metaphorical.

9/16/2015

LateDayDailyPrompt Talking with my students about and thinkin a lot about tension arising from juxtaposition. Make art about unexpected juxtapositions.

9/17/2015

“What’s missing is the triangle face of the fox, light where eyes should shine”–from a poem I’m working on Make art about what’s missing.

9/18/2015

Made myself do something I was terrified to do. Make art about that moment you push through fear.

9/19/2015

“Your children are not your children.They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself. They come through you but not from you, And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you.”~Kahlil Gibran Make art about releasing control.

9/20/2015

Made my son birthday breakfast 🙂 It involved gravy 🙂

The rest is gravy.Gravy train. Good gravy!

Make art about gravy. Yep. Gravy.

9/21/2015

Daily Prompt Missed for this day 😀 So make art about a missed opportunity. 😀

9/22/2015

Daily Prompt “Aging, I am a stowaway in the hold of my being.”~Stanley Moss Make art about aging, about the stages of growing older.

9/23/2015

Happy Autumnal Equinox ❤ Make art about balance.

9/24/2015

“Am I sleeping? Have I slept at all? This is insomnia.”~Chuck Palahniuk Make art about sleeplessness, the long night, the cottony morning after.

9/25/2015

Road trip to visit with my daughter and son-in-law. Early early morning arrival. “What remains for us has always been what’s arriving”~Wayne Miller

Make art about arrival, about what’s arriving.

9/26/2015

Did a little bargaining at the farmer’s market. Haggling is an integral part of the shopping experience in many cultures, and should be considered a game, rather than a battle. Make art about haggling or bargaining.

9/27/2015

Dreamt I was weaving a flower chain necklace for a child, whose bright laughter I heard from a distance. Make art about laughter, the catharsis of laughter, the gift of mirth.

9/28/2015

Running errands all day. Make art about something extraordinary happening in a run of daily tasks.

9/29/2015

Make How To art. Write a How To piece (poem, story, essay), building something creative and beautiful out of a set of instructions.

9/30/2015

Things you miss: laughing together, the shared quiet of dawn, touching his skin. Make art about Love’s small gestures.

10/1/2015

😀 woke up late and so has procrastinated almost everything today 😀 Make art about putting things off 😀

10/2/2015

“Once I had 1000 roses. Literally 1000 roses.”~John Ciardi Make art about abundance.

10/3/2015

“They knew they were born to weep”~Pedro Pietri Make art about hard lives.

10/4/2015

“Dogs are Shakespearean, children are strangers.”~Delmore Schwartz Make art about dogs. Or children. Or dogs and children.

10/5/2015

Helping someone today start a new chapter of life. Make art about new beginnings.

10/6/2015

“Choose to be kind.”~my mama Make art about kindness.

10/7/2015

Working with my students on layers of meaning. Make art that is deliberately layered.

10/8/2015

“I can hear her through the thin wall, singing”~Patrick Phillips Make art about singing in the distance.

10/9/2015

So many papers to finish grading, so much on the to-do list. Make art about feeling overwhelmed.

10/10/2015

I practice BuyNothingChristmas, so the holiday work starts early smile emoticon So I’ll be spending the weekend startin to make handmade gifts. Make art where less is more.

10/11/2015

“Three silent women at the kitchen table.”~Anne Carson Make art about the silence of women.

10/12/2015

We don’t celebrate Columbus. Make art about history being written by the victors. #genocide

Putting in the winter garden, prepping so I’ll have them wonderful leafy greens even when the snow comes. Make art about the ways we prepare for winter.

10/14/2015

My youngest son is 21 today 🙂 my greatest teacher 🙂 Make art about the teachers in your life.

10/15/2015

I have one dog who thinks she’s Houdini, constantly coming up with magic ways to get out of my fenced yard. Make art about escape.

10/16/2015

“The sky hangs up its starry pictures: a swan, a crab, a horse”~Barbara Crooker Make art inspired by constellations.

10/17/2015

I’m conducting a workshop this weekend on Writing Prayer. Write your own prayer, or chant, or gratitude letter. Make art that is prayer.

10/18/2015

Nighttime & Dreams Daily Prompt

Last night I dreamt my beautiful friend Beth and I were escorting a huge group–hundreds–of people on some kind of trek to safety through a beautiful wild desert-like landscape. Beth walked in the front of the long long line of people, and I covered the back, making sure we lost no one. I carried a small child, a little boy with outrageously blue eyes, on my hip, We had planned for years for the time when we would have to do this, and so we knew what we had to do to get them where we were taking them safely. It felt good and strong and somehow celebratory, despite knowing it was a rescue and there was so much that had to be done. I was very glad to have Beth there with me.

Make art about rescue.

10/19/2015

First frost of the fall 🙂 My cold frames are keeping the winter garden safe. Make art about protecting something from the cold.

10/20/2015

Today included seriously the most amazing nap 🙂 Make art about naps.

10/21/2015

Thinkin on Call & Response. Call and response is a form of “spontaneous verbal non-verbal interaction between speaker and listener in which all of the statements (‘calls’) are punctuated by expressions (‘responses’) from the listener.” Make art using a call & response exchange.

10/22/2015

“I want to remember us this way—late September sun streaming through
the window, bread loaves and golden bunches of grapes on the table, spoonfuls of hot soup rising to our lips, filling us with what endures.”~Peter Pereira Make art about sustenance.

10/23/2015
“Love is no hot-house flower, but a wild plant, born of a wet night, born of an hour of sunshine; sprung from wild seed, blown along the road by a wild wind”~John Galsworthy Make art about wildness.

10/24/2015

Teaching a workshop on Creative Meditation Techniques today, which will include painting with our fingers! 🙂 Make art about fingerpaint–or–go on–you know you wanta!–break out the paints yourself and get a lil fingerpainting on!

10/25/2015

Both my sons home today. They make me laugh like no one else. Make art about sons.

10/26/2015

“You can try to pin me down with a hundred thousand arms, but I will find a way to resist. And there are many of us out there, more than you think.”~Laura Oliver Make art about protest.

10/27/2015

I am not who I was 5 years ago. Make art about the Becoming after trauma.

10/28/2015

“Every day we bear up under
the liminal weight of air,
a million pounds and more,
in tiny increments
because we’ve grown used to it…”~Dan Gerber

Make art about the weight of invisible things.

10/29/2015

“Time is the longest distance between two places.”~Tennessee Williams Make art about distance, about distance covered.

10/30/2015

“I have gone out, a possessed witch, haunting the black air, braver at night”~Anne Sexton Make art about witches

10/31/2015

“The dead have stories to tell the living. about relinquishing control, about the sweet sweet letting go….”–from a pome I just drafted. Make art about the thinning of the veil, communing with the dead.

11/1/2015

“And I have learned my lessons in darkness”-from a poem I just wrote. Make art about darkness.

11/2/2015

Struggling with sleep. Make art about insomnia.

11/3/2015

Make art about rebellion.

11/4/2015

Spent the day working on a meal planning/shopping/cooking tutorial for some of my students who struggle with makin their food dollars stretch. 48.1 million Americans lived in food insecure households, including 32.8 million adults and 15.3 million children.

Make art about literal, physical, hunger.

11/5/2015

“After the leaves have fallen, we return To a plain sense of things”~Wallace Stevens Make art about the practicality of autumn.

“The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek.”~ Joseph Campbell Make art about braving the darkness.

11/8/2015

Wrote a poem today called “The List of Dangers.” Make art about an unexpected form of danger.

11/9/2015

Keep hearin the song Little Boxes this morning. Most people now know it as the theme song for the TV show Weeds, but it originally was recorded in 1961 by American folk artist Malvina Reynolds. Make art inspired by little boxes.

11/10/2015

“When born you inherit what’s burning.”~Liam Rector Tattooed on my right arm. Considering the courage of the activists at University of Missouri. Make art about what’s burning.

11/11/2015

“A hero is someone who has given his or her life to something bigger than oneself.” – Joseph Campbell Make art about heroism, about heroes.

11/12/2015

“When the singer’s gone Let the song go on”~Art Garfunkle Make art about the persistence of Love.

11/13/2015

“Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in. I drink at it; but while I drink I see the sandy bottom and detect how shallow it is. Its thin current slides away, but eternity remains.”~Henry David Thoreau Make art about things eternal.

11/14/2015

Met up with old friends to commemorate the anniversary of my brother’s death. Make art about a difficult anniversary.

11/15/2015

House filled with family, and ghosts. Make art about what haunts you.

11/16/2015

“I once was a child am a child am someone’s child”~Victoria Chang Make art about feeling like a child.

11/17/2015

Kept hittin the snooze button 🙂 Make art about the need to keep dreaming.

11/18/2015

Life’s a sacred puzzle. Make art about finding the pieces that fit.

11/19/2015

“Man, you’re already home and you don’t even know it.
You have a room you can return to, and you’ll never outgrow it.
See, you’re already home when you don’t know where to find it.”
~The Antlers

Make art about refuge.

11/20/2015

“I sang my songs so much that they became the soundtrack for my dreams, the melody of my moods, a room I lived in, a balm for my wounds.”~Carole Boston Weatherford Make art about the joy of singing to yourself.

11/21/2015

“We ran as if to meet the moon.”~Robert Frost Make art about that Lady Moon

11/22/2015

Dreamt and dreamt but can only remember bits and pieces. Make art about fragments of dreams.

11/23/2015

“For she was the maker of the song she sang”~Wallace Stevens Fighting fall depression, I make things to push back the dark, sewing painting, etc. Make art about making, about being a maker.

11/24/2015

Thinkin of how much I love my bed. So, pick an idiom and make bed art.

Bed of roses, Bed of nails, Put this one to bed, In bed with, Bed and breakfast, Early to bed early to rise, Wrong side of the bed, You made your bed, Shoulda stood in bed.

11/25/2015

Makin Sweet Potato Pie with my daughter today. Make art inspired by a family recipe.

11/26/2015

Preparing prompts for a weekend writing mrathon 🙂 Make art about preparing for something.

11/27/2015-11/29/2015

Join us on Facebook for the annual Better Than Black Friday Writing Marathon! 24 New Prompts!

Almost Pay Day 🙂 Make art about getting paid. Or paying for something.

12/1/2015

It’s Giving Tuesday Make art about giving, about an act of charity.

12/2/2015

Dreamt I could fly. Just empty myself out, lift off, and soar. Make art about flying.

12/3/2015

“Perfect Love casts out fear.”~John 4:18 Make art about the triumph of Love.

12/4/2015

Mornin news story on how law enforcement s now strongly encouragin people to report it if their neighbors are actin odd or “suspicious.” One of the signs they mentioned is havin lots of deliveries, like from UPS. If this is the standard, I’m screwed. Totalitarianism for breakfast

Because I think we need to, make art about resistance.

12/5/2015

I haven’t put up a Christmas tree since 2011, the year both my husband and brother walked on to the next life. This year, I’m finally putting one up again, and covering it with crazy little angels I’ve been handmaking from clay and fabric for several weeks. I’m calling it my Healing Tree. Make art about healing.

12/6/2015

Quiet Sunday morning with my son. Make art about quiet.

12/7/2015

“So many names, my mother, I’m never sure what to call you.”~Rudy Make art about names, about naming.

12/8/2015

“In the practice of tolerance, one’s enemy is the best teacher.” ― Dalai Lama XIV Make art promoting tolerance.

12/9/2015Up to my eyes in grading for the end of the semester. Make art about a teacher, or teaching.

Last day of grading, semester ending. Make art about something coming to an end.

12/12/2015

Had the most amazing conversation last night, with two young men servin in the Army, both scheduled for deployment in the next few months. One of the young men openly talked about the role faith plays in his life. He spoke with deep compassion of even the enemy he has trained to engage, and I was humbled and awed at how much grace and humanity these young warriors show. Make art about warriors.

1. To adjust to normal atmospheric conditions after being exposed to increased pressure.

2. Informal To relax: decompressed after 12 hours of driving.

12/14/2015

Thinking of all the loving care my nurse mama and sister gave their patients for decades. Make art about nurses, about caretakers.

12/15/2015

First week in the online class is all about defining activism, personal and professional. Make art rooted in action.

12/16/2015

Dreamt the walls of my bedroom melted away and I found myself surrounded by a herd of gentle deer, with their liquid eyes and dancer feet. They nuzzled me with velvet snouts, and whispered Welcome Welcome. We picked our way through a twilight wood, until the trees opened up into broad sweet-smelling fields. And then we ran, and ran, and ran. 🙂

Make art inspired by deer.

12/17/2015

Just drafted a poem called The Words Mama Left Me. Make art about inheritance.

12/18/20

Wrapping presents 🙂 I’ve never before managed to have them wrapped this early LOL Make art about something kept under wraps.

12/19/2015

“That bowl of soup—it was dearer than freedom, dearer than life itself, past, present, and future.” ― Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Made Garden Vegetable Soup for me and my son.

Make art about soup.

12//20/2015

Read a new story this morning about someone carrying a belief in a conspiracy theory too far. Make art about conspiracy.

12/21/2015

I wrote out family canning recipes for my children and my niece. Make art inspired by someone’s handwriting, by something handwritten.

12/22/2015

Last minute holiday preparations. Make art about last minue details.

12/23/2015

Loving the lights this gray rainy day. Make art about Light.

12/24/2015

Remembering being a little kid breathlessly waiting for Santa 🙂 Make art about anticipation.

12/25/2015

Much of the work I did in papers for my Anthropology degree focused on the origins of Judaism and early Christianity, a lot of it centered around belief in a messiah, in messianic traditions. Many religions have a messiah concept, including the Jewish Messiah (from which the term and meaning originates, from the Hebrew in which the word Messiah is identical to the noun and adjectiveמשיח (mashiach), meaning Anointed One, and comes from the Hebrew verbמשח (mashah), meaning to anoint. Other messianic traditions include the Christian Christ( the Greek translation of the Hebrew root word), the Muslim Mahdi and Isa (one of the Arabic names for Jesus), the Buddhist Maitreya, the Hindu Kalki, the Zoroastrian Saoshyant and He whom God shall make manifest in Bábism (believed to be Bahá’u’lláh by Bahais). The state of the world, in most of these traditions, is seen as hopelessly flawed beyond normal human powers of correction, and divine intervention through a specially selected and supported human is seen as necessary.

Make art about saviors. Make art redefining what it might mean to be a savior. Make art about being your own savior.

12/26/2015

Traveling to celebrate with family today. Make art about a family roadtrip.

12/27/2015

Watching PBS nature documentaries with my son 🙂 Make art about the candor and ingenuity of animals.

12/28/2015

“In the space between chaos and shape there is another chance.”~Jeannette Winterson Make art about rising to the challenge of change.

12/29/2015

My son jokes, saying he doesn’t believe in electricity. Make art inspired by the phrase ‘There’s no such thing as….’

12/30/2015

“..the great floodgates of the wonder-world swung open…”~Herman Melville Make art about the mythologies of water.

12/31/2015

“a child carrying flowers walks toward the new year”~Bei Dao Make art envisioning the new year.

“One always has to be willing to lose to be able to win… in battle and in life. I wonder. Are you willing to lose?”~Christie Rich Make art about taking a gamble. Or about being willing to lose.

1/14/2016

“Call it a night. O soul. Flow on. Instead.”~CD Wright Make art about the eternal flow.

1/15/2016

Rewatching my beloved X-Files 🙂 Make art about seeing something new the second time you look.

1/16/2016

Something about being followed by a crow. The pups and I had company this morning. Make art inspired by crows.

1/17/2016

“Snow falling soundlessly will always fill my heart with sweet clarity” ~Novala Takemoto Make art about the musings brought on by falling snow.

1/18/2016

Make art about justice. Or interconnectedness. Thank you, Dr. King.

1/19/2016

“This inwardness, this ice, this wide boreal whiteness”~Christian Wiman Make art about Ice.

1/20/2016

The East Coast is anticipating a big snow storm. Make art about bracing for a blow.

1/21/2016

Pre-winter-storm panic is on where I am. Make art about needing bread and milk.

1/22/2016

Make art about the scent of weather, the smell of snow coming.

1/23/2016

Little Juncos, as if they’re floating, on top of the snow. Make art about balancing on the surface.

1/24/2016

“Left to itself the heart could almost melt, could mend.”~JIll Osier Make art about what’s revealed in the melting.

1/25/2016

Dreamt someone I love built a fire in a snowbank. Make art about warmth, or about love bringing warmth.

1/26/2016

Digging out of the blizzard and goin back to work today. Make art about what’s buried.

1/27/2016

Today’s gift has been conversation with my daughter, and missing my mama. Make art about generations of women.

1/28/2016

Pups and I heard the coyotes singin when we were out this morning. Make art about coyotes.

1/29/2016

Dreamt a storage complex, throwing the doors open to light. Make art about unpacking what you kept stored.

1/30/2016

Got woken up by a text message. Make art inspired by a text message or email.

1/31/2016

Preparing for that first grandbaby got me thinkin. Genetic memory is a memory present at birth that exists in the absence of sensory experience, and is incorporated into the genome over long spans of time. Make art about or inspired by genetic memory.

2/1/2016

Been workin a lot on feeling worthy, puttin myself out there, makin myself do things that just a year a go I wouldn’t have done. Make art about having faith in yourself.

2/2/2016

What happens when I watch X-Files in the mornin LOL “Inside the mystery…It was better to just grope around with careful claws and paws”~Michael Benedikt Make art about moving through mystery.

2/3/2016

Turned off my alarm and kept on sleeping. Guess I needed rest. Make art about oversleeping.

2/4/2016

Making S’mores kits for my daughter’s baby shower. Make art about the comfort of a childhood food.

2/5/2016

All mornin I keep hearin Liam Rector (I called him Big Dog :-)) say “What’s the next thing, girl?” Make art about the next thing.

News this morning about how soon we’ll be traveling to Mars. Make art about space travel 🙂 “Space” can be literal or metaphorical.

2/9/2016

“Every sacred mission, every hunt for hidden relics, I was looking for you.”~Dianna Hardy Make art about a relic.

2/10/2016

“I took a deep breath and listened to the old brag of my heart. I am, I am, I am.”~Sylvia Plath Make art about breath, about breathing.

2/11/2016

“Every sickness has an alien quality, a feeling of invasion and loss of control that is evident in the language we use about it.”~Siri Hustvedt Make art about illness.

2/12/2016

I’ve been watching the presidential debates. This is what I keep hearing: “Politics have no relation to morals.”~Niccolo Machiavelli Make art about politics.

2/13/2016

“Don’t you know that a midnight hour comes when everyone has to take off his mask?”~Søren Kierkegaard Make art about masks.

2/14/2016

“The heart shifts shape of its own accord—from bird to ax, from pinwheel to budded branch”~Dorianne Laux Make art about the heart.

2/15/2016

Another snow day here, and one of my pups is already feeling like she’s been inside too long. Make art about Cabin Fever.

2/16/2016

“Nothing in the world is friendlier than a wet dog.” Make art about a wet dog.

2/17/2016

I wrote a poem called Love You Like An Alien. Make art about extraterrestrial love.

2/18/2016

I am in love, hence free to live by heart”~Vera Pavlova Make art about freedom.

2/19/2016

“I slept and I dreamed that life is all joy. I woke and I saw that life is all service. I served and I saw that service is joy.”~Kahlil Gibran

Just wrote an email to a famous person on behalf of a former student, not at the student’s request, but just because i believe the student’s amazing and if nothing else, I can put the kid’s name in front of someone, And yeah it’s a totally idealistic shot in the dark, but what the hey? Lifetime mantra: The worst they can do is tell me No, right? And if they do, then I’m no worse off than I was before I asked. 🙂 Survival tip #1 for me? When the moment feels darkest, do something good and loving for someone else. That’s what brings the Light ❤

Crocus! Tiny purple blooms announcing the slow change of season today in the yard! Make art about the first signs of spring.

2/22/2106

I bought my first ever new car in 2010, and today, I paid that Lil Red Beauty off! I grew up poor, so this is a big deal for me, as someone who has had a very complicated relationship with money. Make art about finishing something. Or about your relationship with money.

2/23/2016

Did an exercise with my Baby Poets last night where they did freewrites in response to a scent. Make art about a memory evoked by a particular scent.

2/24/2016

My students are analyzing the rhetoric of the presidential campaign. Make art about empty words.

2/25/2016

Virginia devastated by multiple tornadoes yesterday. Even growing up near the coast of NC, where hurricanes and tornadoes happened all the time, I’ve not seen destruction like some of what happened here yesterday. Praying for everyone hurt by the storms. Make art about the power of nature.

2/26/2016

Was greeted by frost on the windows this morning. Oh those fractals! “Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand/And Eternity in an hour.”~William Blake Make art about fractal patterns in nature. Or create art where the structure is inspired by fractal patterns.

2/27/2106

I love to drive. Make art about early morning driving.

2/28/2016

Dreamt I was rescuing someone from a burning house. Make art about rescue, or houses on fire.

2/29/2016

Happy Leap Day! A leap year, where an extra day is added to the end of February every four years, is down to the solar system’s disparity with the Gregorian calendar. A complete orbit of the earth around the sun takes exactly 365.2422 days to complete, but the Gregorian calendar uses 365 days. So leap seconds – and leap years – are added as means of keeping our clocks (and calendars) in sync with the Earth and its seasons. Make art inspired by Leap Day or Leap Year 🙂

3/1/2016

My wise brother told me, in so many words, to remember that we can’t grasp the river. Make art about letting it all flow as it will. Or about a river.

3/2/2016

A sweet friend arrived with her tarot deck in hand and offered to give me a reading. Make art inspired by the tarot.

3/3/2016

The Virginia General Assembly this week put forth House Bill 516 that requires high school teachers to notify parents if they’re going to teach books that parents might find objectionable (sexual content mostly) and gives those parents the right to object and demand alternative materials be taught.

Make art about censorship.

3 /4/2016

I have Complicated Grief-Related PTSD. Some days I’m okay. Some days I think I’m okay, then I’m just—not, not okay at all. Make art about grief.

3/5/2016

The only way I have survived the extreme loss I’ve experienced in my life is by making a choice every day, sometimes every moment, to live not in grief, but in Gratitude. Make art about gratitude.

3/6/2016

Both my sons were home this weekend, and one of my greatest joys is see them together as grown men, not just brothers, but friends. My best friend was my brother, and my oldest son once said, “How cool it is—to find your own best friend right in your family!” Make art about siblings as friends.

3/7/2016

“Be on guard. The road widens, and many of the detours are seductive.” ~David Foster Wallace Make art about detours, or being detoured, or being distracted, or fighting for focus.

“But your solitude will be a support and a home for you, even in the midst of very unfamiliar circumstances, and from it you will find all your paths.” ― Rainer Maria Rilke

Make art about solitude, about needing solitude, about the solace in solitude.

3/12/2016

I’m so ready for spring to really be here. I’m ready for the singing of the bees. Make art about bees.

3/13/2016

Make art about boys, or about what it means to be a man.

3/14/2016

“The only reason for time is so that everything doesn’t happen at once.” – Albert Einstein

Make art with deliberate shifts in time.

3/15/2016

“…careful the morning lest it wake from slumber the city half-encumbered by the morning mist …”~John Geddes Make art with mist as the central metaphor.

3/16/2016

Before my mama went on to the next life, she told me “You’ve got to LET someone love you, Mary, really Love you.” One of the lessons I’m still learning, both about myself, and about other people.

You can only love someone as much as they’ll let you. Make art inspired by this.

3/17/2016

Make art about the difference between hearing and listening.

3/18/2016

Make art about survivors.

3/19/2016

Make art inspired by a rainy Saturday.

3/20/2016

Make art with the first day of spring, about rebirth.

3/21/2016

Great conversation thread yesterday started by the amazing poet and person Karen Craigo on Facebook regarding what we can do all to support poetry and other poets. Got me thinking about how my mama always quoted John Donne, his “Devotions upon Emergent Occasions,” saying “No man is an island.”

Make art about community, abut community-building, about our need for community.

3/22/2016

“The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.” A. Einstein Make art about intuition, about how intuition whispers, about listening to it, or about what happens if we don’t.

3/23/2016

Communion defined: the sharing or exchanging of intimate thoughts and feelings, especially when the exchange is on a mental, emotional, or spiritual level. Make art about communion. Or about art as communion.

3/24/2106

Discrimination, df: treatment or consideration of, or making a distinction in favor of or against, a person or thing based on the group, class, or category to which that person or thing belongs rather than on individual merit:

Make art about discrimination, about enduring discrimination, about surviving discrimination, about conquering discrimination, about eliminating discrimination.

3/25/2016

My grandmother Miz Pearl always said to plant on Good Friday. I haven’t gotten the garden in yet, but I did put in some basil and some seed potatoes. Seeds of a new season. Make art about seeds.

3/26/2016

Easter gathering with family, and my favorite part was watching my loving generous adult sons play with the baby cousins. Make art about love and gifts across the generations.

3/27/2016

Make art about your own resurrection.

3/28/2016

Make art about builders or destroyers, about choosing to be one or the other.

3/29/2016

The pups and I had all kinds of feathered company on our walk this morning. Put me in mind of one of my mama’s favorite poets, John Greenleaf Whittier:

from “What the Birds Said”

“The birds against the April wind

Flew northward, singing as they flew;

They sang, “The land we leave behind

Has swords for corn-blades, blood for dew.”

Make art about birds, about flying, about flight, about what the birds said.

3/30/2016

Business-related phone calls alllllllll day longgggggggggggggg.

Make art about a phone call, maybe where a phone call turns into a surprising exchange.

3/31/2016

Dreamt someone I love brought me a drum, and together we listened to its heartbeat. Make art about a drum, the sound of a drum, the drum as a call to prayer.

4/1/2016

Make art about the body of the planet.

4/2/2016

Make art about your earliest art memory.

4/3/2016

Make art about what you’ve claimed as yours.

4/4/2016

Make art about what you love.

4/5/2016

Make art about your singing place.

4/6/2016

Make art about magical mysterious creatures.

4/7/2016

Make art about the rebirth of wonder.

4/8/2016

Make art about what you really want.

4/9/2016

Make art about where the world ends, or begins.

4/10/2016

Make art about what work is.

4/11/2016

Make art about water, about being water.

4/12/2016

Make art about celebration. Or survival.

4/13/2016

Make art about birth, about the miraculous being born.

4/14/2016

Make art about your wandering.

4/15/2016

Make art about survival.

4/16/2016

Make art about being the maker of your own song.

4/17/2016

I’m over the moon in love, meeting my first grandchild! His name is Max and he is beyond magical! So’s his Mama! Make art about babies, the miraculous beginning of life.

4/18/2016

Today is my niece Jennifer’s birthday. She’s one of the most amazing women I know. Make art about a phenomenal woman in your life.

4/19/2016

Make art about seeing signs.

4/20/2016

Make art about eyes, about what eyes might see, or who we see in a loved one’s eyes.

4/21/2016

Can’t even voice the loss I feel at Prince walking on to the next life. His music has been one of the most consistent and most important soundtracks of my life. I just don’t even have words.

Make art about the importance of music in your life.

4/22/2016

Make art about a messenger.

4/23/2016

Make art about returning.

4/24/2016

Make art about someone whose kindness changed your life.

4/25/2016

Make art about being a maker, about the act of making.

4/26/2016

Make art about walking.

4/27/2106

Make art about escape, the “thousands of ways to escape.

4/28/2106

Make art about the elders, about old ones.

4/29/2016

Make art about what children know.

4/30/2016

Make art about walls.

5/1/2016

Love is Liberation.

Make art about one of the ways you Love the world.

5/2/2016

“It is always important to know when something has reached its end. Closing circles, shutting doors, finishing chapters, it doesn’t matter what we call it; what matters is to leave in the past those moments in life that are over.”~Paulo Coehlo

Make art about knowing something has reached its end.

5/3/2016

Exam week, and it’s crazy hereMake art about things that test us.

5/4/2016

Star Wars Day Even as a little kid, I stared at the sky expecting to see a UFO zipping across those wide coastal skies every time I looked up 🙂

Make art about what you see in the stars.

5/5/2016

I both gave and received help today. It was awesome. Make art about people helping people.

5/6/2016

Make art inspired by wings.

5/7/2016

Thrilled and humbled and honored and NERVOUS! Headed back to my alma mater as the invited commencement speaker for the English Department graduation today. Ohhhh back in Pirate country! To the place–the school–the faculty–who made me believe!

Make art about what you would teach the next generation.

5/8/2016

Under the weather and missing my mama this Mother’s Day, thinking about her hands–her mother’s hands, her gardening hands, her nurse’s hands. She never had a manicure. I can’t recall her ever having her nails painted at all, but man, it seemed the whole world rose from those hands. And now, I watch my daughter, a first-time mama, her hands so gentle and loving as she cares for my grandson. Yep, the whole world That’s what it is.

Make art about a mother’s hand.

5/9/2016

Right now, I’m thinking saturation, saturated, drenched, waterlogged.

Make art about different kinds of rain, or words for rain, or saturation.

5/10/2016

I have a Creativity Promptathon Workshop Weekend coming up, and I always make small gifts for my participants. Nothing fancy, just something I made with my own hands. Small thank you for their trust and time. Make art about a gift someone has given you. Or about giving a gift.

5/11/2016

“I called to say we have two lives/and only one of them is real.”~Claudia Rankine

Make art about the multiple lives we live.

5/12/2016

Headed off to teach a weekend Promptathon workshop at The Porches Writing Retreat

Make art about porches.

5/13/2016

Today’s my daddy’s birthday. I still miss him every day.

Make art about daddies. c

5/14/2016

Make art about the voice you hear down in the hall.

5/15/2016

I have a habit of collecting discarded photographs in thrift stores, those precious memories sold in estate sales, so many beautiful faces, so many voices, so many stories.

Make art about other people’s pictures.

5/16/2016

Had some sweet winged company. A luna moth emerges from its cocoon with not long for this earth. The average lifespan is a week, during which time they have no means to eat (no mouths). Their week (and life) goal is simple: to reproduce. To make love, the strongest of human emotions.Many observers believe this to be a reminder of the importance of love in our short time on this earth. Live and love to the fullest and enjoy every experience that gets thrown your way.

Make art about Loving fully in the moment.

5/17/2016

Okay, so the garden’s cleaned up and turned over, but it’s pouring cold hard rain outside. So I guess I’m sewing, instead of planting today.

Make art about having your plans thwarted.

5/18/2016

I spend most of my time with 18-25 year olds I call them Angel Babies, Angel Chirren. I call them My Teachers. Yep. They always teach me more than I could ever teach them. Make art about something learned from a young person.

5/19/2016

When everything finally has been wrecked and further shipwrecked,

When their most ardent dream has been made hollow and unrecognizable,

They will feel inside their limbs the missing shade of blue that lingers….

–from “Half Omen Half Hope” by Joanna Klink

Make art about your hopes for the human race.

5/20/2016

Make art about healing what divides us.

5/21/2016

Road trip to visit family today in northern Virginia, backroads and crossroads.

Make art about intersections.

5/22/2016

Spent this precious day with my grandson and his beautiful mama my daughter. Max, my grandperson I call him Noquisi Usdi, which means Star is already very vocal LOL a family trait I kept thinking about how, right now, at just over a month old, he has the physical capacity for learning every language on the planet. I kept listening to his wildly varied baby sounds, and thinking about how I wish we could retain—and fulfill–that potential, wishing we could all—all people—speak to and universally understand each other.

Make art about the power of language, about learning language.

5/23/2016

I stopped on the way home yesterday, caught by an intriguing historical sign, marking The Church of the Blind Preacher.

Make art inspired by a historical marker, or by an intriguing historical character.

5/24/2015

Sometimes we forget how powerful we are.

Make art about remembering your own magic.

5/25/2016

FINALLY!– it’s not raining and the temp’s gonna climb up near 90 today, they say. (Don’t forget to look our for the four-leggeds as the temperature climbs )

Make art about heat 🙂

5/26/2016

Was out in the garden, putting up new stick trellises for those climbing stringbeans my son loves so much, when a woman walking by on our tiny backwoods rural road, called from the street, “That’s just how just how my grandmama used to do it!”

I laughed, and said, “That’s just where I learned it–from my grandmama!”

She walked over, and we chatted, her telling me her name was Ruth, and she was visiting family down the road. She told me how she always wished she’d kept a garden but raising a house filled with kids by herself and working two jobs most of those years didn’t leave much time for anything else. I told her it sounded like to me she’d tended to her garden magnificently. She tilted her head and asked what I meant.

Those kids, I said, all grown and making strong good lives. She smiled, patted my shoulder, and said, “You know, I like the thought of it that way.”

I did too. And now me and Ruth aren’t strangers anymore 🙂

Make art about a conversation with a stranger, with a Road Angel ❤

5/27/2016

So much talk this week in my summer school class on Activism, on how to create real world change, on how to lead, on what makes a leader. And such a lack of real leadership in any of the people running for president, it hurts my heart.

“True leaders don’t create followers. They create more leaders.

Make art about leaders, about leadership.

5/28/2016

I was 6 in 1969, and the only connection I could make to the war in Viet Nam was that my Uncle David was there. I remember watching footage on our black and white TV, looking for my handsome uncle’s face. I was too young to understand, but I remember the images clearly.

Make art about your earliest memories of war.

5/29/2016

Came across some large red flowers, discarded on the side of the road, as if tossed out a window. Make art about discarded flowers, about what we throw away.

5/30/2016

Make art about Liberty, about its costs, about the quest for it, about the privilege and fragility of it.

5/31/2016

Make art about War. Or about Peace.

6/1/2016

“We are not trapped or locked up in these bones. No, no. We are free to change. And love changes us. And if we can love one another, we can break open the sky.”~Walter Mosley

Make art about growth, about new growth, about the power in choosing to grow.

6/2/2016

Apocalypse (Ancient Greek: ἀποκάλυψις apokálypsis, from ἀπό and καλύπτωmeaning“uncovering”), translated literally from Greek, is a disclosure of knowledge, i.e., a lifting of the veil or revelation.

Make art about revelation, or about spiritual awakening.

6/3/2016

Make art about interconnections, about ecosystems.

6/4/2016

It’s a John Denver morning.

“If I had a wish that I could wish for you, I’d make a wish for sunshine all the while.”

Make art about what you wish for someone else.

6/5/2016

“In a field /I am the absence/of field.”~Mark Strand

Make art about absence, about being out in the field, about who you are in the field.

6/7/2016

I have a special affection for deer, for many reasons. I sit out on my little stoop and they slip like shadows from the woods, all velvet eyes and dancer feet, and they let me enjoy their company, their beauty, as they browse and graze through the section of the yard I leave wild just for them, what my kids call ‘Deer Diner.’ I planted them a persimmon tree there in that corner a couple of years ago, and I leave them three cups of corn daily paying my rent for sharing this little wooded four acres that their kind occupied long before my house was built. I love them more than I can articulate. Their presence brings me into a place of peace like no other animal. I think they understand this 🙂

Make art about deer. Or about what in nature brings you peace.

6/8/2016

Make art about mothers, or about the daily rituals that go into making a home.

6/9/2016

“I seem to have run in a great circle, and met myself again on the starting line.”― Jeanette Winterson

Make art about changes in identity, about shifting views of the self.

6/10/2016

Make art about ancestors, about what we can do to be good ancestors.

6/11/2016

Beautiful day with family today.

From “On Family Regathering Seen One Night Through a Window” by George Moor

All flows; the person has no permanence.The children will grow up, the parents die.For each precarious present the past tenseIs waiting; all is sort of a lie.The clean cut fruit in dingy crystal bowls;The fading chairs; the family sitting down.For reassurance meet these traveling souls,Each with an intimate sadness of his own.Old habits calm. Old stories of old days….

Make art about family.

6/12/2016

Orlando. Just don’t have words. Heartbroken.

6/13/2016

My son and I found a tiny tiny bird nest yesterday, tumbled on the grass beneath the Guardian Oak. No babies, wounded or otherwise, in sight, just this miracle of weaving, bits of bark and straw and leaf and string. Inside the tiniest shards of shell left behind, thin and white as paper. I was struck at how delicate—and how strong—it is, kinda like Love.

Make art about the fragility, about the persistent strength, of Love.

6/14/2016

Five years ago today, my beautiful funny sexy irreverent brilliant soulful husband, John Little Bear Eaton, walked on to the next life.

“what remains with me vividly to this day is my recollection of a circle of light that shone out from Rafe and enfolded us both, and the deep sense of comfort and familiarity between us, as if we had somehow always known each other and were merely resuming a conversation that had gone on from eternity.”

― Cynthia Bourgeault, Love is Stronger than Death: The Mystical Union of Two Souls

Make art about the eternal nature of Love.

6/15/2016

“Art is a wound turned into light.”~Georges Braque Make art about the wound, about transforming pain into light.

“I believe there is a song that is stranger than wind, that sips the scald from the telling…”~Karen Volkman

Make art about the first thing that comes to mind with the phrase I believe….

6/18/2016

“They don’t teach you what to say to someone who’s dying.”~Neil Gaiman

Make art about what you wish you had said before they died.

6/19/2016

“Opportunities in life come by creation, not by chance. You yourself, either now or in the past (including the past of former lives), have created all opportunities that arise in your path. Since you have earned them, use them to the best advantage.” ― Paramahansa Yogananda

Make art about opportunity, about creating your own opportunity.

6/20/2016

I was raised Catholic, and in cultures that are very comfortable with the dead.

Wrote a poem this morning Haven’t done that in a while Called “The Girl Lightning Loved” 🙂

Make art about what lightning, about what lightning desires.

6/23/2016

Make art about remembering you’re not alone.

6/24/2016

Brexit.

Make art about choosing to leave, even when the choice leaves the future completely uncertain.

6/25/2016

Encountered a little slow down on the road yesterday. Three calves had broken out and were gleefully chasing around, having a high old time.

Make art about unexpected obstacles. Or about unexpected freedom.

6/26/2016

“I leave to you a curious loom,That I have wrought my dreams upon;I beg you lay your hand to itand weave a pattern when I’m gone.”

~James Lovell

Make art about legacy.

6/27/2016

This morning, keep thinking about, hearing, a line from a poem by my mentor and friend, the poet Liam Rector, from his poem “This Summer.”

“Our motto: Fight to live; prepare to go.”~Liam Rector

Make art about preparation, about being prepared. Or about fighting to live.

6/28/2016

“if you’re old enough to read this you know what work is”~Philip Levine

Make art about what work is.

6/29/2016

“It’s hard to wake up sometimes and look back at your life with clear eyes, isn’t it? All the Hello’s and Goodbye’s, and all the things said and left unsaid, whether they were timely, or easy, or uncomfortable or boltfree, or jarring, or just plain true, at least for you, in the moment of their saying.And once you’re awake you have to listen to the now, or ignore it and pretend that it’s just not there. Tricky stuff for the strongest of us, and hard travelin’ for the tender hearted. Like pilgrims on some dusty trail, the long line of true believers stretches into nothingness, and the shadows of the don’t fit in’s move along like so much smoke, pungent and ethereal, lingering toward home.”~John Little Bear Eaton

Make art about the don’t fit in’s.

6/30/2016

“The human brain holds in its cradle its own strangeness”-Eric Waggoner

Make art about the brain, the magic of the brain, its beautiful strangeness.

7/1/2016

“I could spend my life trying to distill the feeling of a summer porch”~Jessie van Eerden

Make art about that summer porch.

7/2/2016

Make art inspired by this quote: “Who looks after the sensitive child?”~Nikky Finney

7/3/2016

“You have to let the Light in.”~Nikky Finney Make art about ways of letting the Light in.

7/4/2016

I wrote a poem today called “What Goliath Wants Us To Know.” Make art about what someone—real or mythical, living or dead—wishes we knew.

I’m struggling to function in the sorrow of what we’re doing to each other. Keep singing a song I learned as a child, One Tin Soldier.

Listen, children, to a story
That was written long ago
‘Bout a kingdom on a mountain
And the valley-folk below

On the mountain was a treasure
Buried deep beneath the stone
And the valley-people swore
They’d have it for their very own

Go ahead and hate your neighbor
Go ahead and cheat a friend
Do it in the name of heaven
You can justify it in the end
There won’t be any trumpets blowing
Come the judgment day
On the bloody morning after
One tin soldier rides away

So the people of the valley
Sent a message up the hill
Asking for the buried treasure
Tons of gold for which they’d kill

It came an answer from the mountain
With our brothers we will share
All the secrets of our mountain
All the riches buried there

Go ahead and hate your neighbor
Go ahead and cheat a friend
Do it in the name of heaven
You can justify it in the end
There won’t be any trumpets blowing
Come the judgment day
On the bloody morning after
One tin soldier rides away

Now the valley cried with anger
“Mount your horses! Draw your sword!”
And they killed the mountain-people
So they won their just reward

Now they stood beside the treasure
On the mountain, dark and red
Turned the stone and looked beneath it
“Peace on Earth” was all it said

Thanks and Love to Eric Waggoner for his seminar at the West Virginia Wesleyan MFA residency on writing ugly topics. Robert Bly said, “Dare to do something ugly.”

Do this. Take on something ugly.

7/10/2016

Garmin took us down some strange backroads today, as it does at times 🙂 Today it took us down a two lane road with no lines, through a series of unicorporated communities, one of which was particularly sweet, Batesville Virginia. As we entered this tiny crossroad community, we passed a stone pillar with the word Elysium carved into it. Love letters from the Universe?

According to Eustathius of Thessalonica, the word “Elysium” (Ἠλύσιον) derives from ἀλυουσας (ἀλύω) and means to be deeply stirred from joy, or from ἀλύτως, synonymous of ἀφθάρτως (ἄφθαρτος) incorruptible, referring to the incorruptible joy of a soul in this afterlife.

Make art about your idea of the afterlife.

7/11/2016

Finding peace in doing the daily tasks of being home: folding laundry; washing dishes; sweeping floors. Make art about those moments when the mundane intersects with the divine.

7/12/2016

Lost a feline family member today, Dobi. She ruled our home with the most regal feline disdain for ten years, and my heart is broken at her going. Make art about what our animal family means to us.

7/13/2016

Coffee in the garden. Reminders of the cycles. Make art about what goes on, about what continues.

7/14/2016

Watching the swallowtails land on the flowers. Make art about finding somewhere to land.

7/15/2016

“Art is a wound turned into light.”~Georges Braque Make art about the wound, about transforming pain into light.

7/16/2016

“Late, I have come to a parched land/doubting my gift, if gift I have,/the inspiration of water”~Dannie Abse Make art about the inspiration of water.

7/17/2016

“Poor dear son, though you were not my son, I felt to love you as a son, what short time I saw you sick & dying here—“~Walt Whitman (letter to Erastus Haskell’s parents)

Make art about how they are all our sons.

7/18/2016

“May God break my heart so completely that the whole world falls in.”~Mother Teresa Make art about the open heart.